From resolutions to failure and back again

Last week was resolution week. Mine were to slow down, eat less, read more and pray. Most of everybody’s 2012 resolutions probably fall close to these types of mandates.

Just like most of us, mine lasted about … let’s just say not very long.

Slowing down was the first one to go. Even with a back up camera in my truck I still proceeded to back into my mailbox and dent the truck. My only excuse is the same I have been using since I was 6 years old and drove my tricycle right off the 6-foot-high wrap around porch. “I was looking the other way.” Truth be told, I was in a hurry for no logical reason.

I have been reading more. That was until I got a new electronic play toy, which has been a big distraction. It is not the electronic gadget that is the problem. It is my inability to resist it and do what is good. I am reading. There is a long way to go.

Eating less fell to the wayside on Jan. 9. Weight Watchers is helping a ton, but on Monday if it was not nailed down, I ate it. I was hungry. I like to eat. I like to eat all the wrong things. Flawed reasoning says I will get back at it tomorrow. Tomorrow never seems to come.

Does this sound familiar?

The last resolution is the only one that is growing. It has to get better regardless of the times that my spirit is willing but my body is oh so weak. Jesus knew us so well and yet still grants us his great grace.

That is just it. Most of us even if we deny it have a legalistic way of looking at our faith. We really think we can conquer our ills. We keep them in secret and carry them as a burden around our neck hoping to get brownie points on our way to heaven.

There is a scene from the movie “the Mission” that has the offender hauling his armor up a mountain strapped to his neck and back to offer penance for his accidental murder of an Indian. It is a pain-staking struggle up the mountain. It just about kills him. What is he met with? Indians. Lots of Indians. He thinks they will kill him for his sin. Instead they cut loose his bag of armor and embrace him by offering him forgiveness.

This dramatic scene represents us. We carry our burdens around. They just about kill us. Yet, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ has set us free. We are to live in the freedom of his grace by living a life of grace and extending it to others and ourselves.

A growth in prayer gives me the avenue of grace to get back up again and seek to glorify God in my resolutions. Anything else is my meager attempt to scale another mountain seeking to gain some sort of status in a world that is broken and in need of a redeemer.

We have the redeemer. His name is Jesus. Stay on our knees. Seek him. Get up. Take a step in His grace. We can’t do it alone. He said he would never leave us. Stay on our knees. Seek Him. Get up. One step at a time. That’s grace.